Talk about highs and lows!

We are currently on Lunar Vacation now. Which is the same as Chinese New Year. Don't ask me to explain much more than that because I don't understand it. All I know is last year was year of the pig and this year is year of the rat -hmm what lovely animals. We have 10 long days off and that is great. One of the parents of the school invited us (the staff) to go skiing with them. This was a generous offer as they paid for everything! Ski hire, lift passes, meals, transport. I was blown away at their kindness. We went off the to ski field Young Pyong. It is the site of the next Winter Olympics. It is about 2 & half hours from Suwon. It is like another part of the world.

We had a fantastic day. It had been almost 12 years since I had last skied, and I am happy to say it didn't take me long to get back into the swing of it. Paul has had a few trips to the ski fields this year so he is starting to look like a skier. The dark horse of the Ciempka family was Emily. This was her second time on skis and by the end of the day she was skiing with me down the harder slopes. She has no fear and it blew me away how quickly she took to it. Claudia is not a skier. She cried through her whole lesson and spent the afternoon in the hotel room playing - maybe next time?

Claudia and our generous host Mrs Baek.

This was before I even put the skis on her feet - snow is cold, and according to Claudia anything that is cold is bad. I told her ice-cream is cold and she just looked at me with the evil eye. She also doesn't like skiing becasue she is a little girl and you shouldn't make little girls do dangerous things.

We all fell into bed on Monday night exhausted only to wake on Tuesday morning sick as dogs. Well the Ciempka girls are sick as dogs. Emily, Claudia and myself have had fevers now for 3 days and I think it is just a bad case of the flu. Claudia and I are starting ot improve, but Emily is still really sick. I haven't been able to crack her fever yet, here's hoping it happens today. Because it is Lunar all the doctors are on holidays, and if we want her to see a doctor we have to take her to the hospital. I am not sure she is bad enough for that, but she is not improving at all. Bloody Lunar holiday. Mind you if I take her to the doctor I will need to take a translator with me and our school nurse is away on a trip, so I would have to hit up a neighbour. Any Korean speakers would be celebrating Lunar with their families (Lunar is as big as Christmas here). AAGGGGHHH!!!! Lets hope her fever breaks today?

Let me just say that this was not how I planned to spend my holidays.

Emily really did not want me to take this photo - can't understand why?

This is Claudia's best sick look.

We have some very dear friends here and we have been supplied with pots of chicken soup and jelly and all other sorts of things ot make us feel better. Thank you Karen J and Karen W, we would have starved without you, or worse still have to have eaten Paul's cooking! I think this photo shows how the soup was made with love!